Every Breathing Thing

A room with instrument cases open on the floor: trumpet, harp, a psaltery, a timbrel, strings, pipes, and two sets of cymbals, one described as loud and the other as high sounding, because one set was never going to do it.

Psalm 150 is six verses long and it is organised. Where: in his sanctuary, and in the firmament of his power. Why: praise him for his mighty acts, praise him according to his excellent greatness. How: the instruments, all of them at once, and dancing. Who: every thing that hath breath. Then the last two words of the whole book, Praise ye the LORD. That final line is wider than it looks, because Psalm 148, two before it, has already been through the dragons and the deeps, the fire and the hail, the snow and the vapours, the creeping things and the flying fowl, the kings and the judges, the old men and the children. Every thing that hath breath is the last item in a list that had long since stopped being about the choir. And it is worth remembering which book ends here. This is the collection that contains a psalm finishing on the word darkness, which never lifts, and one that opens by asking God why he has abandoned the man singing it. Nothing was withdrawn to make room for the cymbals.

Breath is the entire entrance requirement, and you have it, or you could not be reading this. The praise of God has never been waiting on your improvement, or your mood, or a better year than the one you are having. It has been going on in the weather and the sea and the brass, and your part in it is the next breath you take. Let the last two words of the book be spoken over you where you are sitting. Praise ye the LORD.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 283 is No Condemnation (Romans 8:1).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two